Remastering Spyro

Toys For Bob’s design director, Toby Schadt on resurrecting Spyro’s first three games

Why have you decided to focus on the original Playstation games?

Because it’s the classic trilogy that started it all! There are a variety of reasons as to why now is the right time to remaster the first three Spyro games, but the most important is the fans. The love and appreciation for Spyro hasn’t gone away, and we wanted to create a love letter back to the fans with this remaster that unleashed the dragon in a significant way.

What technical challenges have you faced?

The team didn’t have any of the code from the original games, which of course presented a challenge. To get around this, we built a tool dubbed to ‘Spyro-scope’ that helped the team to map the original games to allow us rebuild the remaster from the ground up. This means that each level in Spyro Reignited Trilogy is mapped faithfully from the originals. The characters are creatively reimagined with additional flair allowing fans to rekindle the fire with Spyro and his crew like never before.

Is there anything you’ve had to update from a gameplay mechanics point of view?

them Because we wanted to create a love letter back to the fans that reminds on a why they fell in love with gaming in the first place, we focused our efforts few key areas of the trilogy. First, the controls: fans will experience the iconic platformer with smooth controls and modern flourishes that will enhance as the exploration, collection and discovery. Core elements as fundamental controllers have changed so much since the Playstation days, so we wanted to honour the original experiences while making the gameplay feel natural in today’s gaming landscape. Then graphics, which we wanted to recapture the stunning, lush, and fiery environments. And lastly the experience: the Reignited Trilogy captures that same adventure and wonder of the original three games and goes beyond what fans remember with remastered environments, characters and musical score!

What’s it like working with the voice actors?

may Fantastic! It’s been great to work with them, and fans of the Spyro games in recognise some familiar voices such as Tom Kenny, the original voice actor of Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage and Spyro: Year of the Dragon. He’s back as the voice Spyro in the Spyro Reignited Trilogy.

Our readers crave physical releases. Why are the second two games in the trilogy digital-only?

The development team has put incredible care and effort into the game to make sure it not only lives up to fans’ expectations but also to their own incredibly high standards. Each of the games in Spyro Reignited Trilogy has dozens of expansive levels. A day one patch is needed for those who have all purchased the trilogy via the physical disc. From a development standpoint, 100-plus levels and 400-plus characters in Spyro Reignited Trilogy were handcrafted and built from the ground up.

Does working on other people’s games feel restrictive in what you can and cannot change?

were When Toys For Bob set out to make an awesome game collection, there

The certain design decisions that needed to be made throughout the process. team remained committed to keeping the integrity and legacy of Spyro that fans remembered intact. Toys For Bob’s goal was to ensure that the Spyro in Spyro Reignited Trilogy remained faithful to the Spyro that fans remember when they first fell in love with the franchise. The studio leveraged in-house Spyro aficionados to ensure key details from the original games were faithfully implemented into Spyro Reignited Trilogy.